Time’s just:

After 32 years of ruling Indonesia with an iron fist and a grabbing hand, then-President Suharto was forced to step down in 1998. While gone from power, he clearly is not forgotten. A few months ago, an Indonesian court ordered Time magazine to pay the former dictator a judgment now valued at about $111 million in a libel case. The verdict, which Time is challenging, should not be allowed to stand.

Suharto’s case — which would be laughable if it were not so serious — concerns a story in Time magazine, reporting that he had amassed a fortune of about $15 billion, including $9 billion in an Austrian bank account. Two lower courts dismissed the suit. In a report last June, the World Bank - which considers the problem of stolen wealth from developing nations a “huge and serious problem” exceeding $1 trillion per year - put Suharto on a list of 10 leaders who had “allegedly embezzled” from their countries.

The court’s decision is a threat to a free press. It mocks the reform efforts of Indonesia’s democratically elected government. It undermines the country’s struggle to get beyond Suharto’s corrupt legacy. We hope the panel that hears Time’s appeal will see Suharto’s suit for what it really is — the last grasp for vindication by an autocrat with no legitimate case to argue. — International Herald Tribune